Ed Herbstman

Bio

Ed has been teaching performance improvisation for over 20 years. He grew up in Chicago and after graduating from Northwestern University, he began working at The Second City as a member of their National Touring Company. Also while in Chicago, Ed studied under Del Close at the ImprovOlympic Theater (now iO Chicago) where he was a performer and instructor.

Along with his sketch comedy group from Chicago, Bitter Noah, he moved to LA where he helped start the ImprovOlympic West. In LA, Ed performed in a lot of improv shows, and acted in a bunch of really crappy pilots, both of which he enjoyed very much.

After following his girlfriend to New York, Ed became a Police Officer for 3 years, assigned to the 70th Precinct in Flatbush Brooklyn where he once arrested a gun-toting drug dealer for kidnapping a prostitute.

After that, Ed married his girlfriend and worked as a contributing writer on season two of HBOs Da Ali G Show. He was also head writer for the branded entertainment company, Dandelion, where he creating award-winning online content sponsored by brands such as P&G, Lincoln, Ford, Cadbury, LOreal, and Sun Life Financial. You can see some of his work at Dandelion.com.

You can see Ed in commercials for Orbit Gum, FedEx, Chase, Net10 Wireless, Got Milk, Royal Caribbean and Fuddruckers. And you can hear his work on the acclaimed podcast, "The Truth", produced by American Public Media.

In 2005 he co-founded Magnet Theater where he currently performs and teaches improvisation and comedy writing.